by Joss Wood
Ellie chuckled again and lifted her eyes to meet Tate’s, the perfect little person demanding she share the fun. Tate felt her heart roller-coaster around her chest, trying to resist the urge to scoop Ellie into her arms and chant “mine, mine, mine.”
Sandra and George both had college degrees and good jobs; they had extensive family and lots of nephews and nieces so Ellie would have lots of cousins to play with. They had a solid support group, and, best of all, they were completely open to Tate visiting Ellie, to allowing her to be part of her life going forward.
They were an excellent choice; she could see why Kari was so taken with them. Ellie’s laugh washed over her, and Tate closed her eyes. Just put them out of their misery, give them the gift of Ellie and get on with your life, the life she’d spent the last two weeks planning. She was taking the job she’d been offered, had accepted the very hefty salary, and had demanded, and been given, a lot more creative control. This was her show, and she was going to put her stamp on it.
The show had to be stunningly successful; she was sacrificing everything she loved for it and her career. It had better be worth it.
Tate folded her hands over her stomach and stared at Ellie. She had just two weeks before she had to fly out to Aspen to shoot the first episode, and after that she’d pass custody of Ellie to the Goldbergs. She just had to get them to sign the adoption papers and arrange for them to have temporary custody until the adoption was court approved.
She was doing what was best for Ellie, but how could she walk away knowing that Ellie wouldn’t be a daily part of her life? How could she miss the first time she walked, her first proper word, the toddler tantrums and her first day at school? She wanted to wipe away tears caused by snotty friends, childhood scrapes or stupid boys. She wanted to help choose her prom dress, go shopping with her, watch her marry, have kids of her own.
She wanted it all. She wanted Ellie. She wanted Shaw, as well. And Linc. She needed her family, as cobbled together as it was. She needed to be the mom, the wife, the lover... God, if she couldn’t be any of those, then she’d settle for being the damn nanny.
She just wanted to be with them, around them. And even if Linc wasn’t interested in her anymore—she’d noticed that that he hadn’t called her once—she could still be Ellie’s mom. Yes, it meant sacrificing her career as a travel presenter, but surely there was something else she could do to earn money? Maybe she could arrange culinary tours for travel agencies or become a travel agent or write for a foodie magazine. She could work at night, when Ellie slept; anything was possible if she tried.
But if she allowed this little girl to slip away because she was too damn scared to be her mommy, she’d regret it for the rest of her life. If she walked away from Linc, from Shaw because she was scared, because she put her career and her independence before the people who made her heart sing, she’d never forgive herself. She loved Linc, she loved the family they’d started to become.
She’d been so convinced that she’d needed distance, that she was better off alone, that she didn’t need love in her life. She was so full of it...
If anything, she’d quickly realized that she’d been completely, comprehensively, asininely wrong. It turned out that she needed love and intimacy, she needed Linc to be the best version of herself. She was a shadow of the person she was with Linc, loving Linc. He made her stronger, wiser, simply better.
She’d messed up badly, and she’d hurt Linc, hurt what they had by running away, instead of planting her feet on the ground. She’d hit him hard by doing exactly what Kari did, leaving him because she didn’t have the guts to stay.
She’d fulfilled his worst fears about her, and she couldn’t be more ashamed of herself. She kept telling him that she was nothing like her sister, but when the chips were down, she was. For that, at the very least, she had to apologize. At the very best, and if Fate was a little kind, maybe they could talk, maybe she could find a way back into his arms. She’d swallow her pride, grovel and beg if she needed to. She just wanted to have contact with him, somehow, in some way.
Ellie waved the feather duster, her bright smile showing off one bottom tooth. “Ma...ma.”
Tate placed her hand on her heart and nodded. Yes, she was her mama. Maybe not by blood but by love...
Tate bit her lip and turned to look at Sandra and George who were looking sad but not surprised. “I’m sorry, I can’t. She’s mine.”
Sandra leaned forward and patted her knee. “We know. We’ve known it from the first moment you walked in the door.”
Tate released a half sob, half laugh. “Then why did you let me come back?”
George shrugged. “We hoped that we were wrong.”
“I’m so sorry,” Tate said, standing up. “I didn’t mean to lead you on, to play games with your expectations. I really didn’t know for sure until a minute ago.”
George nodded and stood up. Sandra bent down to pick up Ellie, gave her a quick cuddle and her eyes misted over with tears when Ellie leaned toward Tate, her body language telling them all where she wanted to be. Tate settled her on her hip and bent her knees to snag her bag from the settee.
“I hope you find a baby soon,” Tate said, feeling embarrassed and more than a little guilty.
Sandra nodded. “Goodbye, Tate. Goodbye, Ellie.”
At the door George shook her hand and didn’t bother to walk her down the path to the road. Sucking in cold air, Tate pulled up the hood on Ellie’s little snowsuit and kissed her cheek. “I love you, my darling El.”
Ellie patted her cheek and buried her face in Tate’s neck.
“So, what the hell do we do now, El? I’m open for suggestions.” Tate tipped her head, pretending that Ellie had answered her. “Do you think that we should find Linc, that we should go to him and tell him that I was wrong, that we miss him and that we love him?”
Ellie laughed and blew Tate a kiss. She’d take that as a yes. “Right, any ideas on how to do that?”
Ellie rested her head on Tate’s collarbone and within minutes she was a dead weight in her arms, fast asleep on her chest. That, Tate decided, was her daughter’s way of telling her that she’d created the mess they were in and that she’d have to fix it.
Well, she’d try.
* * *
Linc ran down the steps to the kitchen for the third time that night and wearily took the glass of whiskey Reame held out to him. Shaw was acting up tonight, just as he had been for every night since Tate left two weeks ago. It felt like forty damned years.
God, he was furious that she’d left him to deal with a confused little boy who thought he’d done something wrong to chase her away. He was incensed that she’d confirmed his worst fears about her, that, like Kari, she bailed when life got sticky.
He’d genuinely believed she was better than that. Then again, he hadn’t exactly excelled at getting his point across that night. He’d hadn’t taken the time to explain that he wanted her any way he could get her, that he didn’t expect her to sacrifice a damn thing for him, that she could have her career, that she didn’t need to change anything to become the woman he thought he might, one day, want. She was all he wanted, exactly as she was.
But she’d run and he found that hard to forget. Or forgive. She’d hit him exactly where it hurt the most.
“If you grip that glass any harder it’s going to shatter,” Reame told him in a mild voice.
Linc looked around his living room and saw that, in between him running upstairs to soothe an upset Shaw, his siblings had arrived. Yeah, not what he needed.
* * *
Tate was missing from his house and his life, and, despite his anger and disappointment, he still needed her. He needed her in his arms, kissing his son and her daughter good-night, making love to him when the kids were asleep. He missed Ellie, missed his happy little girl. Because she was his, as much as Sha
w was. But most of all, he missed Tate with every fiber of his being.
He never felt the same sort of constant ache when Kari left; he’d been pissed and annoyed and sad on Shaw’s behalf, but he hadn’t felt like someone was using his heart as a hockey puck. Linc stared at his drink before lifting it to his mouth, grimacing at the awful taste of his favorite ten-year-old rare whiskey.
God, he felt like a shadow of himself.
Reame placed a hard hand on his back and guided him toward the sitting area. His pal pushed him down into the vacant seat next to Sage. Linc wanted to tell him to back the hell off, but he didn’t have the energy. Since she left he’d had the minimum amount of sleep. At least he could blame his red-rimmed eyes on lack of sleep and not on the tears he refused to let anyone see.
His fault for falling in love with another Harper woman.
Reame sat on the arm of Beck’s chair. “So, what are you going to do about her?” he demanded, finally acknowledging the mammoth in the room.
Linc stared out of the window to the garden and noticed that it was snowing... God, he hoped they were warm. Of course they were, he mocked himself. This was the woman who looked after herself all over the world; she knew how to take care of herself. She doesn’t need you...
“Nothing,” Linc replied in an I’m-not-discussing-her tone of voice.
“Wimp” Beck mocked.
Linc glared at him, but Beck just grinned, amused. There had been a time when a watch-it look from him meant something, but no longer.
“There are so many unanswered questions,” Sage mused, tucking her feet up under her, leaning her shoulder into Linc’s.
“She left. That’s the end of the story. No additional questions or explanations needed,” Linc bit out.
“You can growl all you want, but we all know that you are desperate to know whether she gave Ellie up for adoption and whether she’s signed a new contract.”
“She’s keeping Ellie.”
Linc sat up and looked at Reame, narrowing his eyes at his oldest friend.
“She can’t keep Ellie and do the show, so that means she’ll be sacrificing her job. She loves her job,” Linc stated. Dammit, Tate! If you’d stayed, you could’ve had it all.
“All I know is that she’s keeping Ellie,” Reame reiterated.
“And how do you know that?” Linc demanded.
Reame returned his hot look with one of his own. “Why do you want to know? You are the one who let her go.”
“She left,” Linc said, his teeth grinding together. “I told her I loved her, but she still left. Reame, dammit, tell me!”
Reame, the bastard, tossed him a smug smile. “I called her earlier today and asked her.”
Jaeger laughed and Reame shrugged. “PI skills 101,” he explained.
“So, bro,” Beck asked, his ankle on his knee, “are you going to man up and go to her and try and sort out this mess?”
Linc kept his eyes on Reame, and Reame responded with a it’s-time-to-get-your-ass-into-gear look. “She’s not Kari, Linc,” Reame stated.
Linc nodded. “I know.”
She wasn’t. Linc felt his head swim. The last of his resentment toward Kari faded away, and images of his time with Tate flashed on the big screen inside his head... Tate making cupcakes with Shaw, cuddling Ellie, her bright smile when she saw him for the first time at the end of the day. Tate naked, her expression blissful as he ran his hands over her fine skin, down her hip, between her thighs.
Tate, messy haired and bighearted. Tate in tears, crying over Kari. Tate...
Just Tate. His world didn’t make sense without her in it. He needed her in his world.
Linc looked down when he felt Sage patting him down with a dishcloth, Beck standing over him and picking glass off his chest. Reame was holding his hand, and suddenly he realized that blood was dripping from his palm onto the leg of his jeans, some drops finding their way onto the laminated wooden floor under his feet. Linc looked at his hand again and noticed that he had a two-inch shard of glass sticking out of his hand and that he wasn’t feeling a damn thing.
“I’m going to pull this out, and then I’ll decide if we need to take you to the emergency room, bro,” Reame told him.
“Does it hurt, Linc? Are you okay?”
Linc looked at Sage and managed a smile. “Not as much as my heart does.”
“Can you fix it?” Sage asked him, picking up the bottom piece of his broken glass from the floor by his feet.
“My heart or my hand?” Linc nodded decisively. “Damn right I can fix both.”
“Excellent news,” Reame said, examining his hand. “The not-so-excellent news is that this is deep, and you need stitches.”
“Crap.” Linc looked at the kitchen towel that Beck was pressing into his hand. “I was going to leave you lot to babysit, and I was going to find Tate.”
“Not tonight you’re not,” Reame told him. He gripped Linc’s uninjured hand and hauled him to his feet. “You have a couple of painkillers and at least six stitches in your immediate future.”
Linc looked from his very bloody hand to his oldest friend. Screw the blood and stitches. “Take me to her, Reame. I know that you know where she is.”
Reame looked at his siblings, his eyebrows raised. “We need a translator. Do we know anyone who speaks fluid idiot?”
“Very funny,” Linc retorted. He saw the commanding officer look on Reame’s face and grimaced. “Is there any point in arguing?”
“You can, but it’s not going to change the outcome,” Reame, the bastard, cheerfully told him. “One, or all your sibs, will stay here to look after Shaw.”
Linc watched as more blood fell from his hand to the floor. “Damn, now it hurts.”
“Since you crushed a crystal glass in your hand, it damn well should,” Jaeger told him. “Moron.”
His hand was on fire, his heart was battered, and he had to put up with crap from his siblings? On what planet was that fair? Linc sent Jaeger a screw-you look. “Remind me to kick your ass.”
“You and whose army, sweetheart?”
Linc snatched up his cell and headed for the stairs. “Idiots,” he muttered, taking the fresh kitchen towel from Reame and pushing it into his gushing, burning hand. “Idiots everywhere.”
Jaeger’s chuckle drifted to him. “And you are their king.”
* * *
After running scenarios and practicing what she wanted to say, it still took Tate most of the evening to gather her courage to go to Linc. Finally, a little after eleven at night, Tate, using the key she had never bothered to return, let herself into The Den. Navigating the house by feel, she carried a sleeping Ellie up to the third floor and placed her in the crib she’d been sleeping in up until a couple of weeks before.
Slipping out of her coat, Tate grabbed the baby monitor off the bedside table and crept down the stairs to the second floor. She opened Shaw’s door and walked over to his bed, dropping down to kiss his cheek. Taking a deep breath and wondering, not for the first time, whether she was completely nuts coming over to talk to Linc so late, she eased open the door to Linc’s bedroom and frowned at his empty bed. So... Huh, avoiding explanations by slipping into bed with him wasn’t an option.
So much for that fantasy.
After running back up to the third floor, Tate found Sage fast asleep in her bedroom.
If Sage was looking after Shaw, then Linc was out.
Out working? Or out drinking? Clubbing? God, dating?
Tate walked down the stairs and sat down on the settee next to the front door. What if Linc came home with a woman, what would she do? How would she cope? What if he’d changed his mind about her staying? What if he didn’t want to talk?
She felt her insides ripping apart, and she was about to run up the stairs and collect Ellie wh
en she heard low male voices and a key in the front door. Tate watched the door swing open, and then Reame and Linc walked in, shrugging out of their coats.
Linc’s eyes widened when he saw her, and his eyes flashed with an emotion she didn’t immediately recognize. Relief? Surprise? A combination of both?
Tate immediately noticed his bandaged hand and his bloody shirt and bounded forward. She touched his chest and looked into his pain-filled eyes. “God, are you okay?”
Linc’s eyes just bounced from feature to feature as if he couldn’t quite believe she was there. “You’re here. Hi.”
Tate touched his cheek and smiled. “Hi back.” Worried, she looked at Reame. “Is he okay?”
Reame nodded. “Crushed a glass in his hand and he needed a whole bunch of stitches.” Reame held out a pill bottle which he dropped into Tate’s hand. “He did a good job of slicing his hand so he needs to take two of these in the morning. That’s if you are going to be here in the morning.”
Tate held his eyes as her fingers slipped into Linc’s uninjured hand. “I plan on being here.”
Reame cocked his head at her, his gaze probing. “You staying this time, Tate?”
Tate nodded. “If Linc wants me to.”
Linc didn’t speak. He just opened the front door and jerked his head, a clear gesture for Reame to leave. Reame took his time picking up his coat and pulling it on, his eyes filled with amusement.
“Coffee would be nice. It’s cold out there,” Reame teased and Tate frowned. She liked Reame, she did, but she needed to be alone with Linc.
Linc scowled at Reame and gestured for him to leave. “Out!”
“Such gratitude,” Reame grumbled good-naturedly as he moved out into the night. Tate called a soft goodbye but wasn’t sure if Reame heard her because Linc quickly slammed the door behind him.